Censorship in Adelaide

“Gentle Raidings”: American Psycho and
Censorship in the City of Churches

The more
things change, the more they stay the same in all their
decaying tedium. And so, the censors in Australia have been
busying themselves through the not so intelligent arm of the
law by insisting that copies of Bret Easton Ellis’
American Psycho, the Wall Street, psycho dramatic
examination of 1980s “Gecko” culture that can only be
damned for its disservices to art rather than censorship, be
placed under plastic wraps.

Ellis himself described in
the Guardian what he was hoping to do in the novel.
It was an account about his estrangement, his loneliness,
rather than an indictment of “yuppie” culture. “In
retrospect, Wall Street is just wall paper in the novel.”
The critics did not think so, finding in it a digest for
torture, murder and dismemberment, with investment banker
Patrick Bateman the foolishly murderous messenger.
Moralists and critics came together, conflating taste and
talent.

Roger Rosenblatt poured scorn on a book he
regarded as filled with “moronic and sadistic contents”.
He suggested in his New York Times review that
American Psycho “is the journal Dorian Gray would
have written had he been a high school sophomore.” The
sin there, argued Rosenblatt, was more in what the
publishers did, or did not do, regarding the book’s
release. Leaf through it at the bookstores, yes, but in
heaven’s name, don’t purchase it.

Feminists also took
up arms against the book, despite Ellis repeatedly
explaining that the book could hardly qualify as an
anti-female screed. “Mr. Ellis,” laboured the then
president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National
Organization for Women, Tammy Bruce, “is a confused, sick
young man with a deep hatred of women who will do anything
for a fast buck.” That has not stopped efforts on the
part of directors and thespians to flesh out that other side
of Bateman – witness Mary Harron’s adaptation, which was
also, in due course, assailed for its purported
“misogyny”.

On Friday, an Adelaide bookshop owner
found himself “gently raided” for selling copies of the
novel that were not wrapped in desensitising, prophylactic
plastic. Since 1991, Australia’s R18 classification has
made the novel, not so much a matter of pulp fiction as
plastic wrapped fiction. The entire event was redolent with
embarrassment. Yes, the law suggests that it ought to be
enforced by the plodders, but there was a feeling that this
should have been left to the prurient seeking
ecclesiastics.

The absurdity is demonstrated further by
the efforts of Imprints Booksellers co-owner Jason Lake to
explain what the fuss was all about. “We just assumed the
classification has been lifted.” A dangerous assumption
indeed – especially where authoritarian habit remains
lazily present. “It’s the only book on our shelf that we
ever have with a plastic wrapper.” The short of it was
that the book be released from the wrapping, because that,
of course, is what counts.

As with any such regulations,
the complainant is usually a dowdy wowser who gives an
anonymous tip off in the name of protecting the good
public’s delicate and decently boring taste. The world,
with its famines, wars and depredations, is ghastly, but
best not talk about it much. Australia, some confection of
paradise, is worth defending against knowledge. Fittingly
then, such censorship constitutes the giving of two fingers
to the public’s capacity to come to its own conclusions
about taste and how far they wish it to be corrupted. At
the very least, they should be 18 or over.

According to
the ABC, a “police spokesperson confirmed they received a
complaint regarding the novel.” (In this case, it proved
to be an “aggressive lady”, which would have gotten
Ellis rather excited.) But the limiting vice of censorship
enhances the product, granting it lurid status. Lake
himself “suspected a ploy by publishers to keep it in
plastic longer because it makes it stand out on the
shelf.”

Such events give one indigestible food for
thought. This is, after all, a country with a legislature
that is fast expanding powers to punish individuals for the
rather novel idea of thought crime. Assumptions are
repeatedly made about who gets radicalised by using social
media platforms, and who stays at home to vegetate to the
tunes of Team Australia, a ghastly compilation if ever there
was one. Patriotism continues to be the crutch of
scoundrels.

Eventually, the matter of American
Psycho, wrapped or not, was resolved after a chat by the
police with bookstore staff. According to the police
spokesperson, this act of gentle raiding involved police
speaking “with bookstore staff, who were very cooperative,
and the matter was resolved to the satisfaction of the
police.” Good to see that not all aspects of the law,
including law enforcement, need be mirrors of its ass like
qualities.

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